'Possible future clash': WSJ's war-mongering on India-China tensions

The Wall Street Journal's post on India's infrastructure build-up along the Himalayan frontier with China and linking it with possible future clash with China risks sensationalizing strategic competition rather than presenting a balanced picture of defence planning, diplomacy, and risk mitigation.

The Wall Street Journal highlighted India’s infrastructure build-up along the Himalayan frontier with China, saying New Delhi is “spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build roads, tunnels and landing strips throughout the Himalayas, as it prepares for possible future clash with China.”

This sort of framing by the Wall Street Journal amplifies speculation of an imminent India–China clash, despite the context that India’s infrastructure efforts are largely defensive — aimed at improving logistics at extremely high altitudes after past standoffs exposed gaps. Both nations have maintained periods of disengagement and diplomatic engagement along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), with ongoing efforts to stabilize ties.

According to the report, while China had been building a vast network of infrastructure, including railways and roads, along its border areas for decades, India failed to do much on that front, and the 2020 border clash between them exposed India's "alarming" vulnerability along the India-China border.

The report further says that while China could have rushed in reinforcements within a few hours during the 2020 border clash, India would have needed about a week to send additional troops due to lack of infrastructure along the border, forcing it to change its total approach.

The report quoted Major General Amrit Pal Singh, former chief of operational logistics in the northern region of Ladakh, as saying, “We realized we needed to change our total approach” and that “It was a dramatic shift in thinking."

India-China relations had plunged to their lowest point since the 1962 war after the deadly Galwan Valley clashes in June 2020. However, both countries have pressed the reset button amid Donald Trump's tariff offensive that has soured Washington’s ties with both New Delhi and Beijing.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in August this year during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, which was PM Modi's first visit to China in seven years, for bilateral talks. Following the resumption of dialogue between the two countries, there have been statements from US officials on the resumption of ties between the two countries.

China just yesterday denounced a Pentagon report accusing Beijing of leveraging reduced border tensions with India to undermine US-India ties while deepening defence ties with Pakistan. It accused the United States of misrepresenting its defence posture to thwart improving ties between India and China, rejecting suggestions that it was seeking to use easing border tensions with India to blunt the growth of US-India relations.

"The Pentagon's report distorts China's defence policy, sows discord between China and other countries, and aims at finding a pretext for the US to maintain its military supremacy," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a media briefing.

Besides the statements from the US officials, there have also been a number of news reports in the US media, raising all kinds of questions on improving ties between India and China, and this latest Wall Street Journal might also be the one among those aimed at sensationalizing strategic competition.

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